Moneybox

Moneybox is a savings and investing app. It offers savings accounts, cash ISAs, stocks and shares ISAs, a Lifetime ISA in both cash and invested forms, a personal pension and everyday investing in funds and shares, all managed from your phone¹. It is best known for small, regular saving, including rounding up everyday card spending, and for the Lifetime ISA, where its customer data has featured in official scrutiny of how the scheme is used¹.

Moneybox is not a bank. It does not take deposits itself: cash saved through it is placed with a panel of partner banks, with Moneybox holding the money on your behalf². Everything it sells is managed through its smartphone app, which is the only way to open and run its accounts³.

What Moneybox offers: savings, ISAs, pensions and investing

Moneybox sits in the category of investment and savings platforms: services that hold your money and buy investments on your behalf, usually inside tax-efficient wrappers such as ISAs and pensions⁷. Its product range spans four broad areas.

The first is straightforward saving. The savings market includes instant access accounts, fixed term accounts and ISAs, and Moneybox competes in this space with app-based accounts you open and manage from your phone⁸. The second is ISAs. There are four types of ISA available: cash ISAs, stocks and shares ISAs, Innovative Finance ISAs and Lifetime ISAs⁹. ISAs are products that allow tax-free investment into cash, funds and equities¹⁰, and Moneybox offers both cash and stocks and shares versions of the Lifetime ISA alongside its other ISA accounts¹.

The third is pensions. Investment platforms allow you to put your investments inside tax-efficient wrappers including self-invested personal pensions (SIPPs)⁷, and Moneybox offers a personal pension on this model. The fourth is general investing: funds, shares and other investments held outside a pension or ISA. You can read more about each product type in our guides to savings accounts, ISAs, pensions and investing, and about Moneybox's own accounts on its Lifetime ISA and Personal Pension pages.

Moneybox does not publish its rates, fees or limits on this page, and those figures change often. For today's numbers, check the fee and product pages in the Moneybox app or on its own website.

Lifetime ISA at Moneybox: cash and stocks and shares versions

The Lifetime ISA (LISA) is a government scheme to help people save for a first home or for later life. Moneybox is one of the providers that offers it in both forms: a cash Lifetime ISA, where your money sits in deposits, and a stocks and shares Lifetime ISA, where it is invested¹. The government adds a bonus to what you save, and the rules on how you can use that money are set by legislation, not by Moneybox.

The rules for buying a first home are strict. You must be buying with a mortgage, the property must cost £450,000 or less, and the full balance including the bonus can be withdrawn without charge to buy a first home at any time from 12 months after opening the account¹. The £450,000 cap applies in all areas of the UK¹². There are exclusions: you cannot use your savings to buy a home if you are getting a private mortgage from a relative (a parent, grandparent, child, grandchild or sibling), from someone married to or in a civil partnership with your relative, from your spouse or civil partner, or from a relative of your spouse or civil partner¹¹. In legislation, a first-time residential purchase will not qualify if the purchase is funded by a loan from a person connected to the account investor¹⁴.

If you are buying with someone else who also has a Lifetime ISA, you can both use your savings and the government bonus, provided you are both first-time buyers and both meet the conditions¹¹. If you hold both a Help to Buy ISA and a Lifetime ISA, you can only use the government bonus from one of them to buy your first home¹¹. Lifetime ISA savings can also be used alongside other schemes: you can use a Help to Buy ISA or Lifetime ISA towards your deposit for the Scottish First Homes Fund¹⁵, and you can use one to pay a deposit for a home through Right to Shared Ownership or Rent to Buy¹⁶.

Moneybox's own customer data gives a picture of how the scheme is used in practice. The company reported that 80% of contributions to Lifetime ISAs following a home purchase went to cash Lifetime ISAs, that the average withdrawal for a house purchase was £14,927, and that 63% of homes bought by its customers fell within the £200,000 to £399,999 range across all tax years¹. Its head of personal finance told a Treasury Committee inquiry that 80% of Moneybox LISA customers earned £40,000 or less, and that only 31% of its LISA holders maxed out their contributions in 2024¹. That inquiry concluded that cash Lifetime ISAs may not be the best way to save for retirement, but that stocks and shares Lifetime ISAs can be a useful complementary retirement saving vehicle for some people, including the self-employed¹.

You can read more in our guides to Lifetime ISA withdrawals, buying a home and mortgages, and about the account itself on the Moneybox Lifetime ISA page.

Investing with Moneybox: funds, US stocks and fractional shares

Moneybox's investing side works like other investment platforms: you choose what to hold, and the platform holds it for you, deals with the paperwork and applies its charges⁷. The typical holdings are pooled funds, where your money is combined with other investors' and managed by a fund company, and individual shares.

One feature Moneybox is known for is fractional shares: buying a slice of a single company's shares rather than a whole one. Moneybox currently offers investing in fractional shares within a stocks and shares ISA, alongside Freetrade and Plum³. This matters for small investors, because shares in some large companies, particularly US companies, cost more per share than many people want to commit at once. Fractional dealing removes that barrier, though it means you do not hold the share directly yourself.

Moneybox is also exclusively app-based, like Plum, which shapes the whole experience: you choose funds, review performance and change your instructions from your phone rather than through a website or by post³. One upcoming change affects platforms that hold cash inside investment accounts: from 6 April 2027, money market funds become a qualifying investment for the cash component of an ISA¹⁷. As with any investing, the value of what you hold can go down as well as up, and past performance is not a guide to the future. Our investing guide explains how funds, shares and platforms work in more detail.

How Moneybox charges: subscription, platform fee and fund costs

Moneybox's charging structure has three layers, and understanding how they stack up matters more than any single number, because each layer is worked out differently.

The subscription fee is a flat monthly charge, applied per customer rather than per account, so it does not grow as your savings grow. The service fee is a percentage of the value of your investments, charged monthly, so it rises and falls with the size of your pot and with the market. The fund fee is charged inside each fund by the fund manager and varies from fund to fund, so two customers on the same Moneybox subscription can pay different total costs depending on which funds they hold.

Because the service fee is a percentage, it is worth comparing it against the size of your savings: a percentage fee costs more in pounds as your pot grows, while a flat subscription costs the same regardless. Moneybox sets and changes its own fee levels, and it has offered waivers of its subscription fee for customers who meet conditions it sets. The current figures, and the conditions for any waiver, are published in the app and on Moneybox's own website, and those are the authoritative source. Check them before opening an account, and again periodically, because platform fees across the market change frequently.

Who can open a Moneybox account

Moneybox sets its own eligibility conditions for each account, and the detail is in the app and on its website. As an app-only service, the practical requirements are a smartphone, a UK address for the account, and the identity checks every financial firm must carry out. Some accounts have their own rules: Lifetime ISAs carry age and first-time buyer conditions set by the government rather than by Moneybox, and pension accounts interact with the rules on tax relief and annual allowances.

For children's savings, the general position across the market is that a grandparent can open and contribute to a child's investment account, but a parent or guardian must be nominated to look after the account until the child turns 16¹⁹. Check Moneybox's own terms for how its junior accounts work.

If you are on a low income, it is worth comparing Moneybox against free government-backed support before committing to subscription fees. The Help to Save scheme lets you pay up to £50 into your account each month, which is £2,400 over four years, with a government bonus on top²⁰. Our guides to savings accounts and getting started with your money set out the wider options.

Moneybox is app-only: how managing your money works

Moneybox and Plum are exclusively app-based³. There are no branches, no telephone banking in the traditional sense and no desktop banking: you open accounts, move money, choose funds and review everything from the smartphone app. This is a genuine choice point for consumers rather than a detail. App-only services suit people who are comfortable managing money on their phone and want round-ups and notifications built into daily life. They suit less well anyone who prefers to deal by phone, post or in person, or who does not have a reliable smartphone. By contrast, even long-established providers vary: NS&I, for example, manages most accounts online but its Investment Account can only be managed by post²¹.

App-only banking also changes the fraud picture. Advice from the Take Five campaign applies squarely here: avoid clicking on links in emails, texts and social media, and always verify the website or app you are on, because fraudsters clone apps and send fake security alerts²². Just because someone knows your personal information does not mean they are genuine²³. If you lose your phone or suspect your account has been accessed, contact Moneybox through its official channels immediately. Our scams and fraud guide covers the warning signs in more detail.

Opening an account or moving an ISA or pension to Moneybox

Opening a Moneybox account is done in the app: you download it, choose the account, pass the identity checks and fund the account. The process that needs more care is transferring existing ISAs or pensions, because the rules on transfers are set by legislation and getting them wrong can cost you tax advantages.

For ISAs, the rules distinguish between types. In the case of a stocks and shares account or an innovative finance account, the current year's subscriptions and the previous years' subscriptions may be transferred to a stocks and shares account, an innovative finance account, a Lifetime ISA, or a cash account if the account investor is 65 or over at the end of the year, belonging to the same account investor²⁴. The same rule appears in the amended ISA rules that take effect from 2026²⁵. In other words, money in a stocks and shares ISA can move freely between platforms, but moving it into a cash ISA is only permitted if you are 65 or over at the end of the year.

The practical points are the same for any platform transfer. Always use the transfer process on the new provider's app rather than withdrawing the money yourself, because money taken out of an ISA and held in a normal account loses its tax shelter. Check whether the old provider charges exit fees, and check whether Moneybox accepts the type of ISA or pension you hold before starting. Our ISAs and pensions guides explain the transfer rules in full.

Customer service and reviews

Moneybox handles customer service through its app and website, and its own published support hours and contact routes are the authoritative source, so check there for live details. The formal complaints route is the same as with any financial firm: complain to Moneybox first, giving it the chance to resolve the matter, and if you are not satisfied you can take the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service, which can look at complaints about investments and Lifetime ISAs among other products⁹. The ombudsman is free to use and binding on the firm if you accept its decision.

If your problem is less about Moneybox and more about money generally, free independent help exists whatever a provider's service is like. MoneyHelper offers free, impartial money and pension guidance, backed by government²⁶. In Scotland, the Money Talk Team service offers free money and debt advice²⁷, and National Debtline's My Money Steps tool is available 24 hours a day²⁸. If you have been targeted by fraudsters, MoneyHelper's experts offer free, non-judgemental, confidential support to people affected by scams²⁹, and StepChange sets out how to spot, avoid and report scams³⁰.

Getting guidance before using a Moneybox pension

A personal pension is a big commitment, and free help exists before you commit. Guidance is a broader term covering general information and signposting about pensions which does not include a recommendation, and free pension guidance is provided by MoneyHelper³¹. MoneyHelper provides a free guidance service, Pension Wise, backed by the government, with bookable appointments to discuss your pension options³². In September 2026 the Money and Pensions Service launched a new retirement guidance tool that asks a small number of questions and matches your circumstances with the guidance and tools most likely to be useful, producing a personalised action plan³³. It asks for the types of pension you have, how far away from retirement you are, and whether you plan to retire outside the UK³⁴.

Guidance is not the same as financial advice. If you are unsure whether a personal pension is right for you, you can contact the Money and Pensions Service for free advice³⁵, and a financial adviser should ask about the workplace pension scheme offered by your employer and whether you have been enrolled before suggesting a personal pension⁶. That last point matters with any personal pension, including one bought through an app: most people are already saving into a workplace pension with employer contributions and tax relief, and a personal pension should complement that rather than replace it without thought. Our pensions guide explains the differences, and the Moneybox Personal Pension page covers that account's own fees and opening process.

How your money is protected: Moneybox is not a bank

The most important thing to understand about Moneybox is what it is not. It is not a bank, so the ordinary deposit protection that applies to money in a bank account works differently here². Cash you save through Moneybox is not Moneybox's money: Moneybox holds it on bare trust for you and deposits it with one or more banks from its panel. Moneybox spreads cash ISA funds across 10 banks, which has included HSBC, Santander and Barclays².

This structure has consequences for protection. Deposit protection applies to the bank where your money ends up, not to Moneybox, and it applies per banking group: savings with two brands that share one count together towards a single limit. Spreading deposits across a panel of separate banks is designed to keep customers within those limits, but it is your responsibility to check where your money sits if you also hold accounts directly with the same banks². MoneyHelper's guidance on choosing a bank account explains that where a service is not a full bank account, it is likely to be a virtual account covered by e-money rules: your money is kept safe at a different bank, but you would need to make a claim to the administrator if your provider failed³⁷. The FSCS states plainly that it cannot protect you if an e-money firm or payment services firm fails³⁸.

For the investing side, the position is different again. The FSCS investment protection scheme covers consumers when authorised investment firms fail, including where funds or client money are missing³⁹. That protection is for the failure of the firm, not for investment losses: if your chosen funds fall in value, that is your loss and no scheme covers it. Two further limits are worth knowing. Money paid out in a push payment scam is not protected unless you pay by credit card or Direct Debit³⁰. And protection depends on the firm you deal with being the one that holds your money, so always check the FSCS protection checker if you cannot find the firm on its register³⁸. Our consumer protection guide sets out all the schemes in one place.